BEIRUT: Lebanon has decided to release a TikTok content creator arrested for drug trafficking and smuggling, dropping the charges against him under a new amnesty law, a judicial source told AFP on Thursday.
Georges Dib, better known as “Doctor Food” to his more than eight million followers, was arrested in August after being sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in March.
Dib, who also owns confectionery businesses, had been the subject two years earlier of an arrest warrant for “manufacturing narcotics, trafficking and smuggling abroad,” according to state-run media.
But the judiciary has now “decided to drop the charges against him in the drug case for which he was recently arrested, since he is covered by the general amnesty law,” the judicial source said.
The judge in the case ordered his immediate release, the source added.
Parliament passed the sweeping amnesty law, which covers drug offenses among various other crimes, on August 12. It was the country’s first since 1991.
Until his arrest at his home in the north, he had continued to post on TikTok, claiming to be “innocent” and urging his followers “not to listen” to what was being said about him.
Georges Dib first became known with his ex-wife, known as Shorouk, a Canadian of Palestinian origin followed by more than 15 million people, by posting content about cooking and their daily life. They separated after she accused him of abuse.